And then he remembered tearing them off.
He looked down and saw that his underpants and his trousers were around his ankles. He was still wearing his shoes.
He felt an urge to giggle.
“I have an idea,” he said. “Why don’t we take our clothes off the next time?”
She chuckled and smiled at him, and raised her hand to touch his cheek.
“Fine with me,” she said.
“I heard Werner talking with Ramón—”
“Ramón being his lover?” von Deitzberg interrupted.
She nodded.
They were still in the bed. But the bedcovers had been taken off and von Deitzberg was naked under the sheet. Inge was sitting on the bed with her back propped against the headboard.
When Inge had gone to the bathroom, he had stripped, then hung his trousers and shirt neatly over a chair. Inge was wearing the terry-cloth robe she had found in the bathroom. It hung loosely on her and he could see her breasts.
“Who is this man?” von Deitzberg asked.
“A Uruguayan, of course. He’s thirty-something. Not bad-looking. Doesn’t look like a poufter.”
“A what?”
“That’s what they call queers here. It’s English, I think. They use a lot of English words here.”
“What does he do?”
“He owns a restaurant. Actually, several restaurants and a poufter bar.”
“ ‘A poufter bar’?” he parroted, and chuckled.
“A poufter bar,” she repeated, smiling. “That’s where Werner met him.”
“Would you say that Werner has told his poufter friend about the confidential special fund?”
She smiled and nodded.
“I’m sure he has.”
Then both poufters have to be eliminated.
“How did you get to eavesdrop on their conversation?”
“Conversations, plural. A lot of them. I had to protect myself; Werner would throw me to the wolves and take pleasure watching them eat me.”
“And how did you do this?”
“The first time, it was by accident. I’d told Werner I was going to Punta del Este—”
“Where?”
“It’s a beachside resort about a hundred kilometers from here. I go there sometimes to lie on the beach.”
And possibly to find someone who can give you what you’re not getting from your poufter?